The High Road
by Single.Voice
Summary: [complete] She had planned to take the high road for a long time, even if it meant giving him up in the process. Sharpay, Chad, high school, life, pointing fingers, and somewhat subtle desperation. ChadSharpay.


--

_the high road._

--

He admitted he hadn't seen it coming.

He was the heartbreaker, the extensive user of lines like _I don't think it's working out anymore_ and _it's not you, it's me_ and _we can still be friends_. His best friend was the unattainable one, the caring and loyal and dedicated heartthrob, whereas he was the guy who would date any girl, the king of one-week-flings and infidelity. It wasn't planned that way ('_Let's take over the school. I'll be the guy everyone wants and can have for a heartbeat, and you can be the guy everyone wants and can never have but will treat them all civilly_.').

No, Chad never thought it would last forever. (If he really thought about it, they were almost too good of a match.) He never thought they would get married or have kids or grow old together or even last throughout college. He didn't know what he thought, really, he never thought about the future or when the last star would fall. (Maybe he just never thought, period.) He just... took her for granted.

She woke up one day and decided she was tired of him and that it was time to dispose of him. Sharpay never cared about anyone but herself, but all the same, he thought that he had meant a little more to her than he really did. (Oh, the price of being cocky.)

She started with an apology, but that part didn't last long. (She took it back nearly right away.) Sharpay said she wasn't really sorry, but he shouldn't take it personally, because she never was.

He asked why she was ending it now, everything was going _fine just fine_ without a care in the world or a crack in the road or whatever fucking poetic phrase she wanted to use.

Sharpay scoffed at that. Senior year was drawing to a close; did he really expect her to stick around and argue over nothing with him? She had a life to live, a future to create. She wanted to be a Broadway star, and that was what she going to be. He wasn't going to be a part of her future.

Chad wanted to know how she could know that; she didn't know everything and it was so stupid for her to pretend she did.

She wasn't the one being stupid, she was living reality and it wasn't her fault if he preferred his fantasy world. (Besides, when did this turn into a round of _point-the-finger-shift-the-blame_?)

He was going to be a basketball star (there was no _maybe_ about it) but he wasn't planning on leaving her in the dust or throwing her away as a sacrifice. (If he could have it all in high school, why couldn't he have it all now?)

She laughed. If he really believed that, he was an idiot. She was too smart (or maybe she just wasn't naïve enough) to believe that her fairytale would come without any effort. That was the difference, she proclaimed, between _life_ and _high school_. In one, you could be anything you wanted to be just by saying you were (she used Gabriella and Troy as an example), and in the other, you had to work for it. She said she could have easily been a cheerleader and gotten all the high school glory she wanted, but she'd chosen the high road, she'd chosen to build her future. Sharpay smirked and came up with an analogy she was a little too proud of: Chad was _high school_ and Sharpay was _life_.

Chad wouldn't listen, he admitted that he didn't know when he decided that he wouldn't let her go, but he knew that _now_, and he was going to fight to keep her. They could make it work if they tried.

She stated that he wasn't worth the trouble. She wasn't foolish enough to sit back and let her heart rule her head. Whatever they had (if they ever had anything at all) was finished, she didn't want him anymore, and she didn't care if his ego couldn't take it.

Chad shook his head, _she didn't get it_, not at all, and he was going to make her get it. And even as she rolled her eyes and lifted her chin haughtily and protested and asked exactly _how_ he was going to accomplish that, he sang to her, _we've arrived because we've stuck together_.

She shook her head, telling him it wouldn't do any good because she had to leave, _she had to_, she wasn't going to wait for him, and he really shouldn't wait for her because she wouldn't come back. Besides, he got what he really wanted, didn't he? She said he never fooled her for a minute; he wanted sex and he got it and that should have been enough.

He argued that he didn't know why she treated him like a heartless jackass (though she interjected that a heartless jackass was exactly what he was), because he'd given her a lot more than she wanted to admit.

Sharpay expressed amusement with a cold laugh: he gave her decent sex and not much else. He really should stop giving himself all this extra credit, because he hardly deserved it.

He accused her of being afraid. He said he knew she liked him, but she was scared of love so she was running away.

She said she was doing no such thing, and he was an even bigger idiot than she had bargained if he truly, honestly believed that. He loved her, she loved him not. She wasn't going to stand around and deal with his stupidity.

Sharpay always walked away with her head held high.

It was ironic, but she found herself singing something she hadn't sung in a long time, something she sung when she still trusted in "All in This Together", _once we see there's a chance that we have and we take it_. And in a way, it fit just right, like the glass slipper she'd never admit she still dreamed of finding.

* * *

--_author's notes_. 

I suppose it's a nice change for me to write angst using the past tense; I have a love for writing present tense angst. Ah, Chad and Sharpay. Truly the start of something new in my book. Just a random thought, but... I've always thought it would be crazy awesome if they sang "Start of Something New" together. And I guess I now officially have a thing for using random HSM song lines in my fic. It's sort of weird, but I can't stop myself from doing it – it's kind of fun using it ironically. Summer vacation's almost here! Finally. I have a not so tiny pile of unfinished/finished but not edited fic that I'd really like to post, so hopefully I'll have more time to get that out of the way soon. (And let's not forget, with summer comes HSM 2!) Bleh. Sorry about all the pronouns... when I write angst, pronouns come out. Hm. And I'm also sorry because I'm not convinced that this is coherent enough... but maybe incoherency is needed in this case to intensify the angst? On another note, I used "All in This Together" as a sense of irony, so let me know how that turned out in a **review**. And I also wanted to say, if you have some unfathomable interest in some of my upcoming stories (and there's a lot, believe me!), please check out my profile.

Again. **Review, per favore**!

--_disclaimer_.

I own all the mistakes, dears. And that's about it.


End file.
